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 Textiles 1:
A Creative Approach to Textiles

Pat Moloney
Sue Black
Sue Michaelson
The authors of this course book, Sue Black, Sue Michaelson and Pat Moloney,
all have wide experience both as textile designers and university lecturers.
This revision has been done by Pat Moloney with valuable advice and
assistance from OCA tutors and students.

OCA acknowledges with thanks those artists and designers (many of them
tutors and students) who have provided illustrations for this book. Much of
the student work was photographed by Stephen Taylor. The copyright of
illustrations remains with the artists.

The first edition (1989) was edited by Sasha Young; subsequent revisions have
been edited by David Davies.

Front cover: A sample of Soumak weaving

Contents

Preview: A Creative Approach to Textiles

An Outline of the Course
Working Method
Using the Text
Your Timetable
Where to Work
If you are Attending Tutorials
If you are being Tutored by Post
Help from Family and Friends
Keeping a Logbook
Understanding the Textile World
What you need for the Course
Some Artists to Consider
Recommended Books
Summary of Assignments

1 Building a Visual Vocabulary: Drawing,

Mark-making and Stitches
Understanding the Textile World
The Design Process
The Personal Element
Looking at the Outside World
Your Inner World
Source Material
A Way of Approaching Drawing
Working with a Camera
Project 1: Making Marks
What you need for this Project
Stage 1: Preparation
Stage 2: Making Marks in an Expressive Way
 Stage 3: Using Marks to Create Surface Textures
Stage 4: Working from your Sketchbooks
What have you Achieved?
Some Notes on Stitches
Project 2: Developing Marks into Stitching and
Making Textures
What you need for this Project
Safety Procedures
Optional: Sewing Techniques for Machine Embroidery
Stage 1: Preparation
Stage 2: Exploring Marks and Lines through Stitch Techniques
Stage 3: A Sample
Stage 4: Preparing to Create Textures
Stage 5: Stitches which Create Texture
Stage 6: Using Thread and Yarns to Create Textures
What have you Achieved?

Assignment 1

2 Building a Visual Vocabulary: Colour,

Design, Printing and Painting
Project 3: Colour
What you need for this Project
Stage 1: Introduction and Preparation
Stage 2: Colour Perception
Stage 3: Recording Colours Accurately
Stage 4: Colour Moods and Themes
Stage 5: Coloured Stitches
Stage 6: Combining Textures and Colour Effects
Machine Embroidery (alternative activity)
A Note on Colour in Sketchbooks
What have you Achieved?
Understanding the Textile World
 Project 4: Developing Design Ideas
What you need for this Project
Stage 1: Introduction and Preparation
Stage 2: Looking for Shapes and Drawing
Stage 3: Selecting from your Drawings
Stage 4: Developing Design Ideas
Working in Sketchbooks
What have you Achieved?

Interlude: Experiments with Printing and Painting

What you need
Stage 1: Preparation
Stage 2: Experimenting with your Equipment
Project 5: Painting and Printing
What you need for this Project
Stage 1: Reviewing your Collection of Fabrics
Stage 2: Selecting you Design Ideas
Stage 3: Printing and Painting on Fabric
Stage 4: A Larger Sample
What have you Achieved?

Assignment 2

3 Creating Shapes and Three-dimensional Forms

with Fabric
Understanding the Textile World
Project 6: Manipulating Fabrics
What you need for this Project
Stage 1: Preparation
Stage 2: Developing Ideas
Stage 3: Applied Fabric Techniques
Stage 4: Raised and Structured Surface Textures
What have you Achieved?
4 A Piece of your Own
Understanding the Textile World

Project 7: A Piece of your Own

What you need for this Project
Making you Textile Piece
What have you Achieved?
Starting a Theme Book

Assignment 3

5 Textile Structures
Understanding the Textile World
Interlude: Analysing Colour, Texture and Proportion
Project 8: Yarns
Stage 1: Collecting Yarn and Exploring its Qualities
Stage 2: Experimenting with Structures
What have you Achieved?
About Weaving
Tapestry Weaving
Project 9: Woven Structures
Basic Terminology: A List of Weaving Terms
Stage 1: Preparation
Stage 2: Basic Tapestry Weaving Techniques
Stage 3: Experimenting with Different Materials
Stage 4: Developing Design Ideas into Weaving
What have you Achieved?

Assignment 4

6 A Design Project
Project 10: A Design Project
Stage 1: Reviewing your Work so Far
Stage 2: Focussing on your Theme Book
 Stage 3: Developing Design Ideas Based on Drawings
Stage 4: Making a Storyboard
Stage 5: Translating Ideas into Textile Samples
Stage 6: Planning and Making a Finished Piece
What have you Achieved?

Assignment 5

Appendix 1: From First to Second Level

Appendix 2: For Students Tutored by Post
Appendix 3: Note on Yarns and Fibres
Appendix 4: Suppliers of Materials and Yarns
Appendix 5: Museums and Galleries
Appendix 6: If you plan to submit your work for
formal assessment
Sample: extract from Textiles 1: A Creative
Approach to Textiles
We will explore constructing a textile in an experimental way – looking at the
process of interlacing which includes weaving, plaiting and some forms of
knotting. The basic process, whatever the technique, is about converting line
into area. Line represents materials like knitting wool, ribbon, torn strips of
fabric, dried grass, plant fibre, animal hair, pliable strips of wood, wire and so
on. On their own or in combination, these materials can be manipulated into
constructions that will hold together by themselves and form flat two-
dimensional fabrics or three-dimensional structures.

There are many techniques you can use to achieve this, using elaborate
equipment, simple tools or none at all. The apparent complexity in a textile
structure does not necessarily depend on complex equipment.

Spine, and detail, by textile artist Shuna Rendel. Three-dimensional sculptural

forms using textile techniques.

Look around your home and try to identify how furnishings, household
articles and clothing have been constructed. Your experience of handling
fabrics in earlier projects will have made you familiar with different types and
weights of cloth from your fabric collection. Many of today’s new
developments in textiles relate to the innovative use of raw materials and
processes, but the basic constructions are centuries old. New technology has
enabled these processes to be speeded up. Craft processes and ‘ethnic’
designs have had a profound influence on the design of fabric in recent years.
Contemporary work offers possibilities for textile structures from the past to
be re-discovered – this results in ideas which can be both futuristic and
nostalgic. Further reading and research will enable you to extend your
knowledge and understanding of the great diversity of textile structures. This
will help you think about how you might form your own textile structures.
(see Techno Textiles in Recommended Books in the Preview)

Structures may provide you with ideas

Until now, you may only have constructed textiles by following patterns for
knitting, crochet or rug making. We want you to keep an open mind and
develop an imaginative approach to the exercises and sample making. You
will be asked to develop your own ideas from the materials themselves, by
using traditional techniques, by inventing structures and from visual source
material. Everything you have learnt so far is basic to all textile design – that
is, your growing understanding of colour, texture, scale, proportion and
composition.

Many constructed techniques need some skill so you may need to practise in
order to improve your technical abilities, but keep in mind that the effect of
what you are doing is paramount. Don’t let the technique of how something
is made overwhelm your creative judgment. The skills are there as a vehicle
for your ideas giving form to your thoughts and feelings.

Since the techniques tend not to be image-based, it is sometimes difficult to

associate them with working from a visual source. Textile structures give
scope for exploring colour relationships in a very particular way. As one
colour crosses another in either a weave or plait it is often quite difficult to
predict the resulting effects and you will find that your sensitivity to the use
of colour is often heightened by this experience. Similarly, the tactile quality
becomes more evident as a result of making a structure from the basic
elements. Through the physical handling of materials you will become more
sensitive to feel and to texture.

Some people will be stimulated by the inherent qualities of the basic

materials. The colour and feel of some yarns are enough to excite an
imaginative response; the sheer sensual appeal of fibres like mohair, silk,
cashmere or alpaca can motivate some people very strongly. As you will have
discovered already, combinations of yarns and threads can express different
moods and atmospheres.
 Examples of traditional objects showing the use of textile techniques.

However ‘hands on’ this process may seem you will still need source material
to stimulate ideas for colour, contrasts of texture, proportion and shapes.
Good sources of inspiration come from images that are rich in colour and
texture. Some people are inspired by looking at structures which already
exist, such as those found in architecture, iron work, the roots and branches of
plants and trees or bone structures. Working with structure is essentially an
interplay between working with visual source material to analyse colour,
texture, proportion and composition and allowing an instinctive response to
this in your selection of the raw materials.

Examples of traditional objects showing the use of textile techniques.

This is a sample from Textiles 1: A creative Approach to Textiles. The full course contains
10 Projects and 5 tutor-assessed Assignments.